Buying Tips

How I Can Help You Buy a Home

Whether it’s your first home or if you’re an experienced buyer, purchasing a home is a complex process. By working with me, you’ll find a home in the neighborhood where you want to live, one that fits your budget and meets your goals for features, quality and value. Once you’ve found the home that’s right for you, I will guide you through the process of making an offer; negotiating the terms of the sale; getting your potential purchase inspected, repaired and appraised; and closing the sale.

  When you work with me, you will:

Getting Ready to Sell

Helping find a buyer for your home is only one facet of a real estate professional’s job. There are many more aspects including explaining the basic real estate practices and principles and all the related paperwork, Performing a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) to help determine your home’s value, helping to prepare your home for sale, listing your home, marketing your home, keeping you informed throughout the process. When the sale begins, it’s important to work with someone who will assist you with the paperwork, negotiate on your behalf, make sure deadlines are met, and work with the escrow company.

Before you put one thing into a box, take donations to Goodwill, or make even one update to your home, you must decide you are ready to sell. Your positive mindset will help your heart prepare for the new changes coming. Decide that this is going to be an amazing home for a new family and you are going to begin to see it not as your home, but as someone else’s future. Your home will now transition to be a house that you are preparing to sell. A “product” that you are going to make shine so it will bring you top dollar on the market. Its ok to take down the photos and pack up the favorite collectables and kids things, because a new adventure for you is waiting. We want buyers to walk though and imagine themselves in the house with their pictures on the wall. Store up all those wonderful memories that you have made in your home and know that another family is going to do the same. You are giving them an amazing home and there is an amazing, fresh new start waiting for you! NOW, Let’s get that house ready to sell! “Elbow Grease” Updates

• Touch up paint Clean out closets Clean out garage Clean out gutters Tidy landscaping De-clutter (Pre pack knick-knacks, family photos, religious items) Power wash exterior (stone, sidewalks, garage floor, deck) Wash shower curtains Dust! Replace light bulbs to all match (3000Kelvin “Warm White” or “Soft White” bulbs, minimum of 800 lumen are best) Clean, clean, clean! (Can’t say this one enough!) Give it the sniff test—Spices? Animals? Smoke?

“Budget Friendly” Updates

• Kitchen Backsplash New ”On trend” light fixtures Task lighting in kitchen Have carpets & tile floors professionally cleaned Update bathroom faucets Update kitchen faucets Update bedding Cabinet door hardware Paint trim and walls in updated neutrals New Plants/Grass/Landscaping Paint garage flooring Shower doors (clear glass) Clean windows Service HVAC Service pool Fix any broken appliances Have a storage pod delivered for de-cluttering

“Wow” Updates

• Update front door Flooring (replace worn carpeting) Kitchen countertops Paint kitchen cabinets Update tile in bathrooms Replace any broken/worn out appliances Roof—must be in good shape! Repair any windows with broken seals

This list will get us prepped and ready for listing photos, open houses and showings. Once a contract is signed the buyer will schedule the inspection. Inspectors and Buyers will pay particularly close attention to major systems in the house (HVAC, hot water heater, electrical panel, appliances and roofing). If you have any ideas that something is not working properly, fix it now! You do not want it to become an issue during the inspection. A well-maintained home shows and photographs well, gives a buyer great confidence in what they are purchasing and sets the tone for an easy transaction.